(AGI) Rome - The Alitalia airlines board of directors has begun to finalize its merger with Wind Jet and Blue Panorama airline companies. Founded in 2003, Wind Jet has 6.2% (in 2011) of the domestic market with hubs in Catania, Palermo and Rimini, a fleet of Airbus jets carrying more than 2.8 million passengers in 2011. Blue Panorama was founded in 1998 and is based in Rome's Fiumicino airport and Milan's Malpensa airport. It conducts international charter operations with Blue Panorama and short and medium operations with Blu-Express.

What is the reason for this step?! Okay, more shares in the Italian domestic market- but how does a charter operator with a low cost unit and a pure no frill carrier fit into AZ/AP ops?

Very sad times in the Italian market, in terms of competition. On one side will be MERIDIANAfly (ex Meridiana, eurofly and Air Italy) and on the other ALITALIA (Aliatlia, Air One, Windjet, Blue Panorama/Blue Express).

Interesting move. The rationalisation of airlines in Europe is gathering pace.

It's a move that makes sense in an open market like the EU, with less emphasis on having many different carriers in each country, but thinking on a bigger picture scale. The larger the group, the broader the reach in different market segments.

Quoting debonair (Reply 5):Okay, more shares in the Italian domestic market- but how does a charter operator with a low cost unit and a pure no frill carrier fit into AZ/AP ops?

I'd have thought reducing competition is part of the reason. For example three airlines currently operate FCO-CTA, AZ, Windjet and Blu Express. If the deal happens Windjet/Blu Express will disappear, potentially leaving AZ with a monopoly on the route unless someone else starts it

I wonder what will happen to all the routes now operated by IV from CTA and PMO...

I fly the CTA-FCO multiple times every month and i always liked the possibility to choose between a lot of flights by AZ,IV and BV.
90% of those flights were fully booked and you got to remember that now the FCO-CTA is the busiest route in Italy for number of pax(but with a low yeld).
At this point i think that IG(that codeshare with IV on the route) and U2(that already operate on FCO-PMO) will start the FCO-CTA.
About FR i think they are waiting the next opening of Comiso airport in southern Sicily to open flights to CIA,BGY and PSA at least.

Talking about the airlines involved:
About Windjet what can i say...i fly it just because is cheap(but not as cheap like FR or U2 for example) but i think is the WORST airline in Italy...
It's planes are in terrible conditions(all of them are leased and comes from various airlines around the world),minimum in-flight service,the on-time performance is the worst possible,ground staff is unreliable.
I know a lot of IV employees(and pretty much all IV employees are sicilian),both ground and flight crews,and they know that their airline is just like i described it...
By the way some months ago rumours about financial problems of this airline started spreading around...they have problems paying the employees,paying for the maintainance and they had some planes stuck in airports around Europe(i know of one in AMS and even three in Moscow) for some non-payments.

So this take over by AZ poses some problems anyway:
1)What will happen to IV A319-A320 fleet? As i said they are in pretty bad shape and at least they'll need a renewal of the interiors and some of them are IAE powered(AZ 320 family is CFM powered).
2)What will happen to IV route system? The have hubs in CTA,PMO and RMI(Rimini is the hub for east European routes). I really don't think that AZ will keep RMI and i also think that a lot of direct routes from Sicily will be re-routed to connections flights via FCO.
3)What will happen to IV employees? As i said pretty much all of them are Sicilian so in case of jobs cuts i expect strong opposition from the local government. Windjet is really important for the economy of Catania and Palermo.
4)How much will AZ pay for IV and what is gonna do with the financial debt of IV?

Now talking about Blue Panorama and it's low cost brand Blu-Express:
I always thought that it was a good airline,with good on time performance,old planes but well mantained and with nice interiors,good in-flight service and a route system that worked as gap-filler on some routes not covered by other airlines.
This summer i started seeing some troubles,with flights delayed many hours and planes with technical issues(i was on a 757 at CTA that coudn't start the engines and at the end the flight was 5 hours late for example).
I also found difficult to understand the sudden use of 757 or even 767 on a route like CTA-FCO.
But in general BPA is considered to be and airline in good shape so this comes as a complete surprise.
What AZ will do with BPA?
Probably it's Blu-Express 737 will be leased out and the routes will be redeployed to AP,and about the long-haul network i wonder if AZ will keep both the planes and the routes. There is the possibily that BPA brand will remain active as the charter subsidiary of AZ.

Quoting alitalia610 (Reply 10):1)What will happen to IV A319-A320 fleet? As i said they are in pretty bad shape and at least they'll need a renewal of the interiors and some of them are IAE powered(AZ 320 family is CFM powered).

You said it, they are all leased. Just return them at the end of the lease if they are really that bad.